US Military Cycling Team Camp: Day 5

As I stated last night, the time trial went pretty good for me, so I am happy with the results.  The one negative?  I now have to go into WKO+ and adjust my FTP and then do the same on the Computrainer, my tempo workouts in the BTC just got harder.

Friday morning we went for a leisure ride out the Suncoast Trail, the same one that we have each day, but found an spur to go out and look around Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park.  It was an absolute blast, just pedaling around, chatting and taking in the scenery.  We even came upon some wildlife and stopped for a petting and photo op with a snapping turtle.  As bad as that sounds, fortunately, no lost digits.  So basically it was 30ish mile ride over a couple of hours.  Very enjoyable pace.

Post ride consisted of the norm, back to the hotel, lunch, nap, get the bike ready for the next ride.  Today we were going to get to do something t special, we loaded up and went out to MacDill AFB to ride with the local “lunchtime” riders.  With our twenty and their twenty, we had a fairly sizable group to go riding around the base.  Between the 300 miles we had put in during the week and the race weekend coming up, we were all quit content with just doing another easy afternoon ride.  I will say, showing up on base, all kitted up and going for a ride with the ‘locals’ was really cool.  Doug from FRS was also on site and setup at tent, so upon return, we all hung out until time to roll back to the hotel.

Approach of "retreat," the instantaneous transition from cyclists to Soldiers. It's not what we do, it's who we are.

Once back to the hotel, another shower and it was time for dinner.  Spending a few years on different teams, I was use to the normal “team” meeting to talk race strategies and whatnot.  Bill started us out and then Sean took over.  I will admit I have never been in a meeting like that.  30 minutes and I learned more about racing then in the last 10 years for riding.  We then broke into our selective squads and talked specifically about our race.

Since there wasn’t a women’s race, Peggy a strong CAT 2, was going to drop in with us.  Thus giving us seven riders in the 3/4 race.  The plan was fairly basic, Peggy was going to either cover or initiate the first break.  I was going to cover the second, Don and Mark to follow suit.  Kurt was going to be the lead-out for Sam, and if the opportunity arose, Brad was going to try to get in break and make it stick.

I came back to the room nervous.  I am suppose to cover the attacks, hmmm… will my fitness allow for such early race match burning???  Will I be relegated to time trialing by the end of the race????